Parents need to know that Clash of Clans is a strategic action game that pits players against both artificial-intelligence characters and real-world opponents. The app’s license agreement requires all players to be at least 13; teens 13 to 17 are supposed to have a guardian agree to the terms, but it’s on the honor system. There are frequent battles with explosions and the cries of defeated soldiers, but there is no graphic violence.

The game’s core component is its multiplayer mode, wherein players can attack the villages of other players (and defend their own), but they don’t communicate with each other directly when these attacks occur — though there is a global and intra-clan chat functionality when players are in their own villages. Fortifying a village and building an army cost money, and the game uses in-app purchases to help players buy in-game currency to upgrade quicker. Read more about Clash of Clans gems generator.

Few players exemplify the addictive nature of game as well as “Tyrael,” a 21-year studying fire science technology in New Jersey. He’s a part-time firefighter, and he’s getting an associates degree in software engineering. Tyrael, who asked to stay anonymous for our story, says the app has been open for 8,000-9,000 hours.

He’s played the game ~25% of that time, but he’s tending to the app the whole time in order to train his troops. Troop training is a process which can take a while but is essential to building up resources to help win a raid.

“I ended up having to stay online 16 hours a day so I didn’t get attacked,” Tyrael tells Business Insider. “That became something I did on a daily routine.”

“All defensive walls, non-defensive buildings, heroes, everything, every last upgradable thing is complete,” Tyrael said. “Nothing you can click has a button that says upgrade anymore.”

“Clash of Clans” is a free app, but you can move along more quickly if you pay for features. This is a “freemium” model. It’s free to play, but you could end up paying a premium. Players are always tempted to pay real-world dollars for the virtual in-game currency, gems, to help get ahead in the game. For example, if a player wanted to upgrade their base to match Tyrael’s, it would cost them just shy of $12,000.

While Tyrael has purchased the occasional upgrade, he says the overall amount is minimal, around $50 and that he preferred to upgrade the old-fashioned way by playing the game. More info on Clash of Clans unlimited gems.

Just about the time this game hooks you with its quirky cartoon troops and try-to-outfox-the-defenses strategy challenges, you realize that all of your dreams of “bigger and betterness” require some major time investment. Once they’re beefed up a bit, your troops are no longer developed in mere seconds; they now take several minutes (read: many, many minutes) to train. And the bigger barracks and buildings start demanding literal hours of construction time. Why, you’d have to check in every half hour all day long to be able to really keep track of your community’s real-time development.

To make the village strong, gamers can buy the equipment needed at the shop. There are 6 types of items sold in the shop namely Treasure which contains Gem that can be obtained with a credit card, Resource is a building to get and store Elixir, Decoration as a village decoration, Army contains buildings to strengthen troops, Defense is a building to protect the village from the opponent’s attack and the Shield whose function is to make the opponent unable to attack the village-owned for some time.